Alleghany Wood Rat 



5. Newfoundland Muskrat. F. obscurus Bangs. Still smaller and 



darker, with different skull. 

 Rans,e. Newfoundland. 



AMERICAN LONG-TAILED MICE AND RATS 



(Sub-family Cricetince) 



Alleghany Wood Rat 



Neotoma pennsylvanica Stone 



Length. 16.40 inches. 



Description. Tail nearly as long as the body, ears prominent. 

 Colour plumbeous above, sprinkled with black hairs and with a 

 yellowish-brown undertone which is purer and brighter on the 

 sides of the body becoming almost pink on the flanks. Feet and 

 lower surface of the body pure white. Tail sharply bicoloured, 

 dark plumbeous above and white below, closely haired so as to 

 obscure the scales entirely. Some summer specimens are duller 

 coloured with much less of the buff or pinkish tinge. 



Range. From the Hudson highlands and northwestern New Jersey 

 southward along the Alleghanies. 



Rats and mice differ only in size and it does not follow that our 

 American wild rats are closely related to the common house rat simply 

 because both are big. On the contrary our wood rat finds a closer 

 relative in the white-footed mouse of which he is in many ways 

 simply a large edition. 



House rats often wander into rather wild localities probably 

 following the camps of engineers or lumbermen, and are not 

 infrequently taken for wood rats. The latter, however, can always 

 be told from his semi-domestic cousin by his hairy tail, softer fur and 

 much larger ear, while his teeth are flat-topped somewhat like those 

 of the meadow mice instead of having raised prominences or 

 "tubercles." 



The Alleghany wood rat inhabits wild rocky ledges along the 

 mountains, where he can seek shelter among the loose piles of broken 

 rocks or in the crevices and caves usually present in such localities. 

 Here he gathers together a mass of sticks, shreds of bark leaves and 



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